It has become a bit of a cliche in the game industry to talk about the last time a game made you cry. But this weekend's Sundance premiere of Indie Game: The Movie seems to be introducing a new question that may seem a bit ridiculous to those familiar with the checkered history of video game cinema: when is the last time a movie about a video game made you cry? Or, even better, made your mom cry?

"When we showed it in Salt Lake City, that was an overwhelming audience of regular people sobbing," Lisanne Pajot, half of the two-person team that created Indie Game: The Movie, told Ars in a recent phone call from the film festival. "This movie tends to kick mothers right in the heart. It's not something we anticipated."

"We get a lot of mothers come up to us and say, 'My son or my daughter plays tons and tons of video games, and I always thought it was a waste of time,'" film-making partner James Swirsky added. "'But now I don't. Now there's hope,' they say. They totally change their impression."

Those mothers are finding hope in a story that focuses primarily on the struggles of four indie game makers: Tommy Refenes and Edmund McMillan, makers of tough-as-nails platformer Super Meat Boy; Jonathan Blow, who's become something of an indie gaming elder statesman after the success of inscrutable, time-bending platformer Braid; and Phil Fish, whose perfectionism has led to constant delays for multi-dimensional puzzle platformer Fez.

The two-person production—an indie itself—was funded primarily through over $23,000 in Kickstarter funds in 2010. Since then, the filmmakers have shown footage to a few dozen friends and family, but this weekend's Sundance premiere was the first time it had been shown to a wider audience, which seems to have accepted it with open arms. Reviews have been overwhelmingly positive so far, lauding the creators for making "a moving documentary" with "a vibrant, beating heart."

Indie game: the Movie trailer

While indie developers sitting in front of their computers and writing code for months at a time might not seem like gripping cinema, the filmmakers said they tried to focus on the human stories and struggles that animated these creators.

"It's a surprisingly emotional film," Swirsky told Ars. "A lot of people come up and say 'I had no idea it was going to be this, I thought it was going to be a fun little thing about video games.' And it is about video games, but it's not a fun little thing about video games."

One theme many Sundance critics picked out of the film was that of indie game makers worrying over releasing their tightly controlled work into the harsh glare of public criticism, something the movie's creators said they related to all too well.

"It's like we are living the movie," Pajot said. "It's amazing the parallels between our journey and the journey of the game developers in the film. It is hard to put something out there and it is hard for people who see the decisions and the values in the film—even though the film is not about us, it feels so personal."

The ups and downs of the film's creation reached another peak on Sunday, when Oscar-winning film producer Scott Rudin (Moneyball, The Social Network, True Grit, No Country for Old Men and many more) announced he has teamed up with HBO to option the film's story for a fictional, half-hour series. Though Swirsky and Pajot have been in talks with Rudin since before Sundance, they said they were a bit shocked to come out of a screening of the film to find the Internet ablaze with the news, which they thought wouldn't be announced until well after the festival was over.

The pair was also surprised to learn that large swaths of the Internet seemed to think the HBO program was going to be a sitcom, a misinterpretation of the news that raised fears among many of the movie's fans.

"It scared us too, because there's nothing in the movie that screams 'Oh this needs a laugh track and multiple cameras and it'll be fine,'" Swirsky said. "It's not going to be a comedy. Every conversation we've had with Scott Rudin and his production company showed they understood the film and they wanted to do something very sincere and honest and compelling about it."

Pajot and Swirsky will be serving as consulting producers on the series, they said, to make sure that it stays true to that vision. They'll also be able to make sure that, despite being an HBO program, the new show won't be filled with gratuitous sex scenes. "Our movie doesn't have a lot of boobs, but it does have a lot of swearing," Pajot said.

While it remains to be seen if larger audiences outside of the indie-sympathetic confines of the Sundance festival will have quite the same reaction to this humble little movie, the reaction from the public so far seems to have been basically everything the creators could have wanted.

"[It's been] really interesting having people watch the film in a theater and react to it and say what I hoped the movie would say [to them], that game creators are like any other creator, working hard," Pajot said. "They laughed and cried, and it's awesome."

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

I have to admit I read the first few lines and greeted it with a hell of a lot of skepticism, but whoever did the trailer for it did a great job of selecting scenes that seemed representative of the movie. I like the music and feel it was a good compliment, too.

My friend and I recently (within the last 2 years) really dove hard into indie game development and the trailer alone speaks volumes to me; I don't see <i>all</i> facets of myself represented there but I see echoes of myself in a lot of what was shown. Will definitely see this when I can, I hope it comes to my area.

Jim Guthrie does fantastic music, I first got introduced to him in the iOS game Sword and Sworcery. Loved his stuff so much I actually bought the soundtrack heh

It's just disappointing to see we're going to have the same low-level poor article selection that was rampant at the end of Ben's ARS career, continue with this guy.

Well I happen to believe that it fits perfectly in here. The mistake you make is that this is not a movie that just mentions video games, but is about the real people making real video games. If you care about video games, and technology, as I assume most people on ars do, then I would think you are interested in the processes of making them. Again this is not a movie with a simple reference to some game it is all about people making games.

It's just disappointing to see we're going to have the same low-level poor article selection that was rampant at the end of Ben's ARS career, continue with this guy.

Articles like this are why I come to Ars. :)

Also, it's a doco about 4 indie game developers and what they went through to get their games out of the door. The article is not a review of the movie, but a news piece on the success the movie has had at the Sundance Film Festival and the reaction of non-gamers to it. This may not be about a specific game (it's about three :D) but it is about games and how they are perceived and related to. I'm personally very interested in checking this film out and I would never have known it existed if not for this article.

My wife and I never heard of the movie, but it looks interesting and we like to support indie efforts. We will buy it when it's available.

As far as ARS category, gaming is just fine for this movie. Clearly gaming directed, and clearly about the development of games. Ummm, maybe it should be in the cooking section or shoe size controversy forum or something? I don't get the issue. Is it even worth bringing up?

Anyway, Thanks for the article! And welcome to ARS. Next time, don't be so damn pro Microsoft. Oh, sorry Micro$oft and Sony and $Nintendo$.

Don't be pro anything, and the gamers here will be delighted. As long as you don't crap all over their flavor of the jour. Best to not have an opinion on anything, but just sit back and write great opinion pieces. doh.

It's just disappointing to see we're going to have the same low-level poor article selection that was rampant at the end of Ben's ARS career, continue with this guy.

i know you're just a troll and I shouldn't feed you, but it sounds like the problem is on your end: your expectations. Why should any of us care what YOU expect to find in the gaming section? I certainly don't care, nor am I the person holding the gun to your head that forced you to read it.

Sundance is about as indie as coldplay. It's just another industry cesspool of schmooz. Seriously, every year there are a ton of big names parading their "indie" movies through. It is not what it once was. It's now just another hollywood marketing device to put a hipster beard and sweater on otherwise mainstream-y movies.

It's just disappointing to see we're going to have the same low-level poor article selection that was rampant at the end of Ben's ARS career, continue with this guy.

i know you're just a troll and I shouldn't feed you, but it sounds like the problem is on your end: your expectations. Why should any of us care what YOU expect to find in the gaming section? I certainly don't care, nor am I the person holding the gun to your head that forced you to read it.

Didn't Kotaku recently announce that they were making a version of their site that strips out everything thoughtful for assholes with tunnel vision? Maybe this is a social experiment to see if Ars will do the same.

Didn't Kotaku recently announce that they were making a version of their site that strips out everything thoughtful for assholes with tunnel vision? Maybe this is a social experiment to see if Ars will do the same.

Hahaha. I was thinking almost the exact same thing when I read his initial post as well. Personally I'd never read Kotaku Core. If I want to read about a specific game I'll look it up on multiple sites. If I'm not interested in an individual article I'll ignore it.

I think Ahkroma's main issue is that Opposable Thumbs has on average 2 posts a day. If he's not interesting either of them then he's got nothing to read on Ars for the day.

It's just disappointing to see we're going to have the same low-level poor article selection that was rampant at the end of Ben's ARS career, continue with this guy.

If I recall correctly Ben did an article about "King of Kong" which received just the same amount of BAAAaaaaaw and hysterical posting from that most unfortunate subtype of net dweller.You all know the type, those that see something they don't like and then read through it only to complain they don't like it.

I liked the article from Kyle, found it interesting, is it about a game directly? nope, but its interesting to me none the less, id have missed out on this entirely had someone not had the balls to do a write-up, but then again I'm someone who believes more diverse content cant possibly be a bad thing, I've got that part of my brain that lets me actively avoid subjects I'm not too into however, a part thats severely lacking in some it seems.

I loved this article. I have been working for a while to launch my own indie game company, but focused on board/card/pen and paper games, so some of what they talk about struck home. Even if the genre was different - such as pouring your heart and sole into a project for years and hoping that it won't be rejected completely. I will be watching this movie once I can find a copy! Maybe it will help me decide if we're going to move forward with our electronic game division!

Just as an aside: a major site like Ars, with a gaming section, should not limit itself to "just game reviews." That would be terribly short sighted, and I'm glad that they don't do that. By being more inclusive of the industry as a whole, they are a much more valuable resource to more people. I hope they continue to expand this practice! Great work!

It's just disappointing to see we're going to have the same low-level poor article selection that was rampant at the end of Ben's ARS career, continue with this guy.

STOP NOT LIKING WHAT I LIKE! TRORR!!

Honestly, someone with the name "ThePoopDaddy" has no place calling another user a troll. Just because I didn't like the article and said as much, does not make me a troll. I'm sorry you lack the mental capacity to do much else than drool wildly and flail your arms, screaming "Troll!!! TROLL!!!". Someday, you might just learn how to formulate a counter-argument without resorting to ad hominem arguments.

It's just disappointing to see we're going to have the same low-level poor article selection that was rampant at the end of Ben's ARS career, continue with this guy.

STOP NOT LIKING WHAT I LIKE! TRORR!!

Honestly, someone with the name "ThePoopDaddy" has no place calling another user a troll. Just because I didn't like the article and said as much, does not make me a troll. I'm sorry you lack the mental capacity to do much else than drool wildly and flail your arms, screaming "Troll!!! TROLL!!!". Someday, you might just learn how to formulate a counter-argument without resorting to ad hominem arguments.

You know what's worse? You said more than just disliking the article, you expected it to be a movie review, which it was clearly not. Your sarcasm adds on it. Your first post is a basic level of trolling. It's unpleaseantly ignorant. You still continued disliking this article as a movie review, and once again, it's not. The "my opinion" argument only works when both users know what you are arguing about. I'll respect your opinion when you label and criticize correctly. Try again buddy..

Jonathan Blow, who's become something of an indie gaming elder statesman after the success of inscrutable, time-bending platformer Braid

This is misguided at best, and offensive at worst. Blow is nowhere near "an indie gaming elder statesman." His pretention makes him more like "a representation of everything wrong with indie gaming."

I mean no disrespect by this, but if you're going to make a comment like that, you better know your shit. Jeff Rosen or Chris Hecker might quality for such a title. Hell, even Gabe Newell is a better pick than Blow. Developing a successful title does not magically mean you're a "statesman." God help gaming if Markus Persson or Will Wright spoke for the rest of us...

It's just disappointing to see we're going to have the same low-level poor article selection that was rampant at the end of Ben's ARS career, continue with this guy.

STOP NOT LIKING WHAT I LIKE! TRORR!!

Honestly, someone with the name "ThePoopDaddy" has no place calling another user a troll. Just because I didn't like the article and said as much, does not make me a troll. I'm sorry you lack the mental capacity to do much else than drool wildly and flail your arms, screaming "Troll!!! TROLL!!!". Someday, you might just learn how to formulate a counter-argument without resorting to ad hominem arguments.

You know what's worse? You said more than just disliking the article, you expected it to be a movie review, which it was clearly not. Your sarcasm adds on it. Your first post is a basic level of trolling. It's unpleaseantly ignorant. You still continued disliking this article as a movie review, and once again, it's not. The "my opinion" argument only works when both users know what you are arguing about. I'll respect your opinion when you label and criticize correctly. Try again buddy..

Honestly, you don't seem the type to respect another person's opinion if they disagree with you. Try being less condescending, I'm not your "buddy".